Augie Sweethearts: Laurel Carsell '86 and James Patrick Carsell '84

Submitted by Laurel Carsell of Dalton, Mass.

We met in Choir. I was a soprano and my husband was a bass. One fortuitous day, Mr. Morrison put in sections - the sopranos and basses were to sit on the right side of Bergendoff, the altos and tenors were on the left side of the hall. Mr. Morrison then had each section stand to warm up. The basses towered over the sopranos heads - and I'm sure we made some kind of comment in regard to that. Then, he had the sopranos stand. That gave the basses quite the view of our posteriors, giving them the opportunity to comment - which they did.

I thought that James was rather cute after many weeks. I passed him on the stairs coming from up campus to Old Main. Well! Those eyes of his melted me! After a few more weeks, we began chatting more. James asked me if I wanted to go to the on-campus movie - American Werewolf in London. Not a movie I really wanted to see, but I was asked on a date. He said "I'll pick you up on my motorcycle." I declined knowing my folks would have a fit if I even entertained that idea! After the movie we went for Pizza at Happy Joes. And well, the rest is history.

I met his family in the following weeks and passed that initiation! We were engaged for 3 years and just celebrated our 32nd wedding anniversary. We were married in the Chapel before Christmas break so that all of our friends could celebrate with us and Dr. Harris played the organ and many of our classmates were instrumentalists! It was beautiful!